The researchers took 12,000 photos of loan applicants posted on peer-to-peer lending site Prosper.com and handed them to 25 volunteers. The 25 survey takers were asked to look at all of the pictures and assign each a degree of trustworthiness, ranking the photos on a scale of 1 to 5, with one being not trustworthy at all and five being the most trustworthy. They were also asked whether they found the person in the photo attractive and, in either case, whether they would extend a loan to that person. The result: The result: More trustworthy-looking people were more likely to get loans, at least from the 25 people surveyed.

Let’s pause here for a second. Prosper.com is a peer-to-peer lender, which means that ordinary joes and janes are approving loans, not traditional financial institutions. Instead of submitting a loan application with your FICO score and additional documents, you submit your story to peers, who may or may not agree to loan you money, with interest.